Both the MSP430G2553 and MSP430G2452 come with the Launchpad development board. They replace the MSP430G2231 and MSP430G2211 which came with the original offering. If you already have a Launchpad the chips themselves can be had for around $2.25 and are easily programmed since the development hardware hasn’t changed.

The review starts off by looking at clock options for the processor. The internal VLO is put to the test first, with a look at the power consumption followed by temperature stability through the use of a hair dryer. The actual frequency provided has fairly low accuracy, but it stays pretty stable when hit with the hot air. The next test uses the provided 32.768 kHz clock crystal as an external input. The crystal came with the Launchpad board, and the chip has configurable internal capacitors so this is as easy as soldering the package in place. Hit the link at the top to find out how this clock source fared in testing.

11 thoughts on “A look at the upgraded MSP430 chip shipping with the TI Launchpad”

“since the development hardware hasn’t changed”
This is not entirely true. The set of jumpers connecting the MSP430 to the programmer at the top of the board has changed. In particular, the Rx and Tx pins were swapped because different pins are used for hardware vs software UART. The new board allows you you swap the pins by changing the orientation of the jumpers from vertical to horizontal. On the older board, you have to swap the pins some other way.

Howdy,
I hope a general Launchpad question is not out of place here. I soldered a set of female headers to a Launchpad last year and did a couple of small projects with it. I moved and have not found that Launchpad, so I ordered a couple more. The new ones come with male headers already attached. I can’t figure out how to use them. I could take a wire and run from the female headers to a breadboard. How do I connect these? I searched on amazon and google for female jumper wires, but did not come up with anything useful. I found some at 40 cents per wire, but that is ridiculous. Is there some simple solution I have not found yet?
Thanks.

Old computers all tend to have female jumper cable for the leds and power button, that is one source. the other is ebay. “arduino female to male” gets you a lot of results, including some for 40 for $4 (free shipping) so 10 cents a wire. Can be cheaper. Other options is wire wrap tool (or doing it manually.